ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, December 19, 1995 TAG: 9512190033
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
THE CITY of Roanoke ranks first in the state in juvenile arrests per capita. You may not have heard a lot of bragging about this.
But, unlike a distinction the city suffered a couple of years ago, when it had the highest teen-pregnancy rate in Virginia, the standing on juvenile crime suggests Roanoke is ahead of the curve in recognizing a disturbing trend and making concerted efforts to counter it.
Don't get us wrong. Roanoke isn't anywhere close to solving juvenile crime. Nor is it adequately prepared for a projected rise in crime, as the youth population swells in coming years. Much needs to be done and changed to prevent rather than merely react to youth crime - in this region as well as elsewhere.
Nevertheless, the high number of juvenile arrests here does reflect an increased emphasis on early-intervention strategies that other communities would do well to contemplate and emulate. Certainly, this emphasis deserves more attention from state lawmakers as they consider reforms in the juvenile-justice system.
As this newspaper's staff writer Laurence Hammack reported in the Kids & Crime series this past weekend, young people who have run away from home or violated the city's curfew ordinance account for a big percentage of Roanoke's juvenile arrests. Of 3,241 arrested in 1994, none was charged with murder, rape or manslaughter. Only 20 were arrested for robbery and 29 for aggravated assault.
Part of this has to do with the fact that Roanoke's crime problem is less serious than, say, Richmond's. Also at work, though, is growing recognition that tracking down runaways and curfew-breakers isn't a poor use of police officers' valuable time.
Like school truancy, such behavior patterns signal that a youth is vulnerable to getting into deeper trouble. By taking that youngster into custody and seeing that he or she receives counseling, the police deliver a wake-up call and may prevent the sort of serious, even violent, crime that would soon land the kid in a juvenile jail. In some cases, it's a detour that can save a young person's life.
For many years the city has offered crisis-intervention - Sanctuary, it's called - for troubled youngsters. These programs include a short-term residential center at Coyner Springs (separate from the juvenile-detention center and operated separately from the juvenile courts) where many runaways and others picked up for first-time offenses are taken for professional counseling.
Other Sanctuary efforts include non-residential counseling that focuses on improving family situations. The private sector, too, provides some excellent early-intervention resources for juveniles.
Without such diversion programs, judges would have little choice but to lock up more youngsters - or leave them on the streets.
The city is to be commended for these and other efforts to prevent juvenile crime, efforts that include the impressively effective COPE (Community-Oriented Policing Effort). More preventive attention sent the way of children and adolescents - truants in particular - would prove an excellent investment.
No one has devised a way to count prevented crimes. And 3,241 arrests of juveniles last year, for whatever reason, are nothing to celebrate. Still, there is less reason for despair over juvenile crime here than in other places, where commitment to early intervention has lagged Roanoke's. If the city isn't already first in the state in this commitment, it should aim for the distinction.
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